New novel out today!

This is not a Love Song is the book I've been writing for the past 18 months on and off. It seems strange to be releasing this into the wild whilst I'm signed off work with chronic depression and a hatred for humanity that means I can't bring myself to leave the house but, given the topics covered in the novel perhaps that is appropriate. It's one of the bleakest things I've ever written but I also think it's one of the best, all the better for being written very slowly, and redrafted several times.

I've always been drawn to the darkness, to dark themes, and I've always been fascinated by people operating a long way outside the usual conventions of society, people who almost seem like aliens among us. Murderers and psychopaths are the obvious examples but I've also always been drawn to people who expressed their weirdness in a much quieter fashion. One of my heroes is Henry Darger who spent his whole life meticulously working on a 15,000 page unfinished novel that expressed themes that mattered only to him, mostly those involving androgynous children. I wish I had his staying power.

This is not a Lovesongis my attempt to get some strange ideas of my own out of my head and onto the page. It's the first thning I've felt really comfortable sharing with people, not because I think people will like it, I'm sure some people will but I'm sure many, many more won't, but because I feel like it captures something I've been working towards for a very long time, since I first started trying to write more than short stories. I've written three novels before this one, and even shown the texts to a few people but they were never things I felt inspired to make widely available. This is the one that captures who I am, or who I was, as a writer.

During a bout of chronic depression might even be a good time to release this nasty little piece into the world. I don't really care about it being out there because I don't really care about anything much right now apart from staying indoors and playing videogames. I hope some people like it but it's not a problem if no one does. I write for recreation, not for money. If I wanted money I certainly would have written a very different book, probably involving a dystopian future populated by feisty teenagers who defy the social order. Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea. Perhaps that'll be the next one I work on.